Jack Valenti, an aide to President Lyndon B. Johnson who later served as the chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America for nearly four decades, died on April 26 from complications following a stroke, at the age of 85. In an interview for this year's annual Hollywood Issue, the charismatic politician—who invented the modern movie ratings system and whose presence long bridged the gap between Hollywood and Washington—sat down withV.F.'s George Wayne. Below is an expanded version of their conversation.

Photograph by Gasper Tringale.

George Wayne: Have you actually considered the possibility of Bill Clinton as flotus? Have you ever thought of that happening?

Jack Valenti: Bill Clinton may be the best political strategist on the scene and surely is the best political speaker on television. As a First Spouse, that is a kind of mesmerizing thought, to be honest with you.
Rumor has it that you and then president Clinton did not really get along, that there was a certain amount of friction between you.

That's not true. We had one little contretemps, I think, but that was a long time ago. I've learned in politics that you never burn bridges. I am an admirer of Clinton. His intellect is most formidable. The last president, I think, who was as smart, or even smarter than Bill Clinton, was Lyndon Johnson, for their sheer intelligence.
And then there is the matter of the mad kangaroo. Have you forgiven Mel Gibson?

I think Mel Gibson made an awful stumble, an unrebuttable blunder, raving on as he did. But I believe in the First Amendment, so if a man wants to, I suppose, use language I would find unsuitable, he has the right to. But the language he used was, in a way, blasphemous.
But have you forgiven him?

There is no one that I have any sort of animus for, but I don't forgive. I am a sinner myself, so why should I place myself above anybody else?
Have you seen his latest opus, Apocalypto?

As of this moment, no, but I do plan to see it.
Many in your orbit eye with regret the fact that Jack Valenti is no longer the C.E.O. of the Motion Picture Association of America. Why do you think that is?

I learned a lesson from working in the White House. I learned a lesson in World War II, and I learned a lesson from Hollywood. One of them is: Nothing lasts forever. All things come to an end, and what I wanted to do after almost 39 years as chairman/C.E.O. of the M.P.A.A. was to write my own script for my departure. I wanted to go out when I thought at least I was at the top of my game. I could have stayed on five more years but then I would have probably heard towards the end of that term rumors out of Hollywood saying, "When is that ole son of a bitch ever gonna leave?" So I think I got out at just about the right time. And I am still involved as a consultant and strategist for the M.P.A.A. for the next five years.
What would you consider your greatest legacy?

The two greatest things in my life are the passage of the Voting Rights Act while working for President Lyndon Johnson, and in 1968 when we were able to create the voluntary ratings system.
I don't think anyone, not even George Clooney, could name the current C.E.O. of the M.P.A.A.

He's a wonderful man, a former congressman by the name of Dan Glickman. I am proud of him.
I am betting and hoping that I am right and that the first two names to head your Oscar 2007 ballot are Forest Whitaker and Dame Helen Mirren, the season's best actors.

I learned a long time ago what you never do—ever, ever—is tell anyone, including your wife, who you voted for at the Academy Awards. I never speak out ahead of time.
Well, I consider it a travesty if those two actors do not win this year.

I thought Forest Whitaker was terrific in The Last King of Scotland, and Helen in The Queen was simply matchless. She was the Queen, and that is the epitome of great acting.
And so many on this Dreamgirls bandwagon. I say enough already with the minstrel show. The hype is a bit too much. Give me a break.

Minstrel show? I have never heard that word used so before. But David Geffen has been working on this for a long time, and Bill Condon.
I support Eddie Murphy as a best-supporting nominee for Dreamgirls, but enough already with the hype of this minstrel show. Ray and Chicago were enough.

All I can say is I never heard it called that before, George.
And I am also hoping and expecting to see you across the room at Mortons on Oscar night, watching you toss back a celebratory shot of your favorite whiskey with Al Gore as he strokes his Oscar to celebrate his win for best documentary. He is the only shoo-in this season.

A young man named Davis Guggenheim directed that film, and it was a powerful, compelling film. I am a great fan of Al Gore.
Yes, it's all about Al G, not Ali G., this season. A lot of people don't realize that Lew Wasserman, who was Ronald Reagan's Hollywood agent way back when, before he ran a Hollywood studio, was also the man responsible for your Hollywood career.

I really owe more than I could ever repay to two men. First, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who brought me to the largest proscenium in the world, plucked me out of obscurity and brought me to the White House; and Lew Wasserman, who plucked me from the White House and brought me into the movie industry. Wasserman was an extraordinary man. There has never been a more dominant figure in the movie industry over the last 50 years, nor one who could match the cunning and the shrewdness and the visionary reach of Lew Wasserman. I owe him big time.
You've certainly lived quite an extraordinary life in your 85 years here. But November 22, 1963, has to be the most unforgettable day of your life.

That is exactly right, exactly correct. I can almost recite for you, even almost 44 years later, every minute of that nightmare of a day. It is so ingrained in my head, and when I dare look back on it, everything comes flooding back in full, vivid color. It was a day America will never forget, and neither will I. Anyone that was over the age of five at that time can you tell you, George, with great precision exactly where they were when they first heard the news. It was senseless act of mindless malice and it shook the great body of this country and the world.
You could almost claim to have witnessed the actual assassination of President Kennedy. You were what, three cars behind in the presidential motorcade?

I was actually six cars back from the president when it happened.
Relive the day, yet one more time, from the moment you first realized that something had gone horribly awry.

Because the wind was going in a different direction, I didn't hear the shot. The cars in front of us went from 8 miles per hour to, like, 80 miles per hour, and I saw people milling on the street, so I knew something was wrong. But I merely thought the president was late for his speech at the Dallas Trade Mart. So I told our driver to go to the Trade Mart. And when we got there, there were about 2,500 people, but no president. I went up to a Secret Service agent, who then told me that the president had been shot, and that the governor had been shot. He got us in a deputy sheriff's car with the siren on and took us to Parkland Hospital. And there in the basement I was wandering around and an aide came up and said Vice President Johnson wanted me, and that he was told to bring me to Air Force One. And then he leaned down in my ear and said very softly, "The president is dead, you know." Well, hell, I didn't know and I just came unglued. I went with him to Air Force One at Love Field and the new president saw me and beckoned to me. When I came up to him, he said, matter of factly, "Jack, I want you on my staff, and I want you to fly back to Washington with me." At that moment, my life, like the country's, the lives of so many of us, changed radically.
You were on that historic flight from Love Field back to Dulles Airport, in Washington. Was that your first time on Air Force One?

First time on Air Force One and first time at the White House. On the flight back, I remember saying to the president, "I don't have a place to live." And he said, "Well, you can live with me until your family comes up." So I actually lived on the third floor of the White House mansion for two months until my wife and my three-week-old daughter came up. I think there have been only two assistants to a president who lived at the White House. One was Harry Hopkins, one of Franklin Roosevelt's closest advisers, and the other was me with Lyndon Johnson.
There is a famous photo of you on Air Force One witnessing the swearing in of the 36th president of the United States. The First Lady was also in the photo in that bloodstained Oleg Cassini dress.

Mrs. Kennedy would not take off anything. And not only was it stained with the president's blood, but that grey matter from his brain was also on her blouse. I was so taken with her.
You had an unfiltered view that day of a First Lady in the throes of a monumental crisis. What was she really like?

Well, I'll tell you what she was like. I have heard the phrase catatonic trance. I never saw that before, but when she came from the rear of the plane her eyes were cast downwards, but they were opaque. Her eyes were open, but they were unseeing. How this woman, who an hour before was sitting beside her husband when a bullet exploded in the back of his head and he fell right into her arms … I just don't know how she got through the day, much less the months ahead. I have nothing but warmth and love and respect for her.
So basically it was stoic shock.

That is exactly what it was. I just don't know how one could have survived a moment of such terror. I don't know how she did it.
Equally fascinating, also, was the fact that the night before the president was killed, you had hosted a dinner for the president and the First Lady. You were there his last night on earth.

In Houston, Texas. Yes, I was the chairman of that dinner and I remember being backstage with Vice President Johnson and Mrs. Johnson and the president and Mrs. Kennedy, and there the vice president first introduced me to the president and Mrs. Kennedy. It only hit me later—that the first time I actually met John Kennedy was the last night that he lived. I never got over that.
Was he ebullient that night?

Oh, he looked like a Plantaganet warrior, a great royal king. Handsome, charming, and when Vice President Johnson told him that this is "Jack Valenti, the man responsible for your jubilant welcome to Houston, Texas, Mr. President," President Kennedy said, "Jack, I am going to put you under glass and take you with me every time I go somewhere, if you can produce this kind of an outpouring." He was just wonderful.
Did President Johnson in any private moments with you, and they were many, ever talk about that day in Dallas?

Yes, he did. He believed—though there was no evidence for it—that the Cubans had sicced Oswald on the president, that Castro had done that as revenge for Kennedy trying to assassinate him. And he believed that, though there was no evidence to support that case. But that is what he believed.
You really think Castro was capable?

All I know is that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole gunman. I'll tell you why I believe that, and it wasn't because of the Warren Commission Report. It was because everything leaks in Hollywood and in Washington. And 43 years later there has never been a leak. There are conspiracy theories out there. And if there were a conspiracy, there would have to be at least 10, 20 people involved in that conspiracy. And nothing's leaked, so that is why I believe Lee Harvey Oswald was on his own.
Some people are born with style. Jack Valenti was born to be in politics. There is a wonderful story of you as a 10-year-old child, standing before a political gathering of some 500 people in Texas and giving a speech!

I made my first political speech at 10 years old, that is true. It was at Luna Park, in Texas, a rally for the sheriff, a man named T. J. Denver. He was 6'5" and carried two pearl-handled 45s strapped to his waist. The sheriff thought it was a great idea when my father asked him if I could give a speech. And no, I don't remember what I said.